The present invention relates to detecting the source of airborne particulates, and more specifically, to detecting the source location of odors using a mobile device system.
Odors can often indicate hazardous events such as chemical spills, gas leaks, or sewage system leaks. Odor source detection in urban areas can be challenging due to the complexity and density of urban environments. Previous methods for locating sources of odors used robots or other specialized sensing equipment to find the source of odors. Typically these systems used sensing equipment that would detect a concentration of molecules that caused odors in an air sample. Sensing equipment often fails to reliably detect a concentration of molecules in an open atmosphere unless the concentration of molecules is sufficiently high to be detected by the sensing equipment. Such systems are often expensive and difficult to calibrate and maintain.
Rapidly locating the source of an odor is desirable for urban administrators and first responders.